Moot Court Team to Travel to The Hague for ICC Competition

by Brian Kelley '13
|
March 29, 2011

On to The Hague

Christopher Bettis '11, Laura Brymer '12, center, and Margaret Brunner '11 will compete as a team in the fourth Annual International Criminal Court Trial Competition in April. The team cinched a spot at the finals following a win at a preliminary competition at Pace University earlier this year.

Three William & Mary law students - Christopher Bettis '11, Margaret Brunner '11, and Laura Brymer '12 - will travel to The Hague on April 10-15 to compete as a team in the finals of the fourth annual International Criminal Court (ICC) Trial Competition, sponsored by the International Criminal Law Network in cooperation with the International Criminal Court and Pace University. In all, 21 teams from around the world will compete. The William & Mary team cinched a spot by placing first in a preliminary competition hosted on Jan. 28-30 by Pace University Law School in New York.

"We are very excited and extremely grateful and humbled," Brunner said. "The outpouring of support in the Law School community has been amazing."

Fifteen teams took part in the preliminary rounds in New York, which served as the qualifying rounds for North American teams. William & Mary's team also earned third place for its defense brief, and Brymer won best oralist for the final rounds.

The competition focuses exclusively on international criminal law issues. This year's problem was a hypothetical case taking place in 2019, and it focused on the crime of aggression -- a crime that is not yet prosecuted by the ICC.

The finals in The Hague will consist of four preliminary rounds and a final round.

According to the sponsors' website, "The competition gives a wide scope of advocacy in allowing students not only to take on the role of prosecutor or defense counsel, but also that of victims' counsel. The judges are established and highly respected practitioners in the field of international criminal law and are comprised of both lawyers and internationally renowned judges from the ICC and ICTY [International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia]."

Benjamin L. Hatch, an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, serves as the coach of the Law School's Moot Court Team.